


best of wives and best of women

by Cinnamonbookworm



Series: the revelation series [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Damien Darhk is Felicity's father, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Part 2, Shopping, a look into the life of two of the most powerful women in starling city, having too much fun with alter egos, season 4 speculation, yes i know that was just said not canon don't judge me you all wanted a sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:05:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamonbookworm/pseuds/Cinnamonbookworm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Laurel can’t fix Felicity’s largest problem for her, can’t sweep away the damage Darhk has done, but she can fix this one. She stands up, swiping one last crouton and calling their waiter over for take home containers. “Come on,” she says, “we’re getting you a dress.”</i>
</p>
<p>The sequel to silently resigned that you all asked for. There may be a part 3 to this series, who knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	best of wives and best of women

**Author's Note:**

> (yes all these titles are from hamilton lyrics don't judge me)  
> so by this time almost the entirety of this fic is about to be proven not-canon, since it technically takes place around 4x07, and 4x06 is airing this week. still, it's been sitting in my drafts half-finished forever and i thought why not put up the sequel. still, i'm not lying, there may be a part 3 sitting around in which the proposal actually happens, but until then let's have fun with some therapeutic retail.

 

The restaurant is wide and open, with lots of light and wonderful salads. The tables are fairly secluded, but not dark. It gives them the perfect place to talk.

They don’t talk about the video, or Darhk, or HIVE, or even the proposal. Instead, they talk about the expected things, like the proton-adaptor Felicity is inventing, and Laurel’s latest big trial (she just rounded up the latest of the Swedish mafia bosses), and the campaign gala for Oliver tomorrow night.

Felicity doesn’t seem upset with her boyfriend, per-se, but more hurt. Her eyes still light up when she says his name, but a flicker of a bitter smile follows soon thereafter, and, if the way she’s currently stabbing her salad is any indication, Laurel’s pretty sure there’s a fight coming. A big one.

_Well,_ she thinks, _if Felicity isn’t going to fight him on this issue,_ I _am._

She’s really going to let Oliver have it. Let him know she won’t let him treat Felicity like he treated her. She deserves better than that.

But for now, for now she’s happy to hear about Felicity’s brunch the other day with Curtis Holt and his husband, about the tests she still has left to run on the proton adaptor, about how she still hasn’t decided what to wear to the gala yet.

Laurel can’t fix Felicity’s largest problem for her, can’t sweep away the damage Darhk has done, but she can fix this one. She stands up, swiping one last crouton and calling their waiter over for take home containers. “Come on,” she says, “we’re getting you a dress.”

 

Laurel looks good in black. She’s learned this since she put on the mask. It makes her feel powerful, strong, elegant. And when she’s attending a political gala hosted by her ex-boyfriend with a huge presence of press guaranteed, well, black seems like a good choice.

She tells the sales associate she wants something that says “Black Canary” and then marvels at the fact that her alter ego has grown so popular and recognizable that she can ask for something like that and people understand what it means. She spares a glance at Felicity. Even this little inside joke isn’t enough to get her to smile.

Felicity, on the other hand, prefers to pick her dresses out herself. So, while they wait for Laurel’s dresses, they search together through the racks. Felicity also seems drawn to black today. Black and blue and purple and red. The colors of the body they’d found hours after Felicity had come back to them. The one her father had killed in front of her. Just to make a point. Maybe this trip wasn’t the best idea after all.

“What about green?” she asks. And okay, maybe she’s having too much fun with this inside joke, but maybe she also wants to trip Oliver up a bit, see how dedicated he is to this whole mayoral idea. It might be fun to see how many minutes Oliver can last before making a terrible excuse and taking Felicity out of there. Also, the “Black Canary” statement would be more fun if Felicity went along with a “Green Arrow” one.

Felicity’s hand strokes a particularly elegant emerald A-line, the same color as Oliver’s hood, but she quickly pulls away.

“Hero color.” is her only response.

Laurel’s heart breaks a little at that statement. Black and red are hero colors too, but they’re also the colors of the stain Darhk has left on Felicity’s heart.

“You don’t have to be a hero to wear the color,” Laurel tries. “I mean, Emily DeBlanc wore a dress like this last month, complete with arrowhead earrings, and she’s _anything_ but a hero.”

Felicity doesn’t answer her, just keeps going through the store, staring off into the racks of formal dresses with a mind somewhere else. Laurel doesn’t intervene. She’s scared if she does anything right now it’ll have drastic effects. Her body may be fine but her soul is obviously in critical condition. Felicity’s mind seems to be made up about the kind of person she is, and it’ll take a lot more than a shopping trip to change that. No amount of floor length silk dresses is going to make Felicity realize she’s a hero. No amount of cautious words and hands on shoulders and quiet looks shot across a nearly-empty sore are going to restore whatever piece of Felicity’s soul that Darhk broke.

The sales associate calls out their names. Felicity looks up from her empty stare with a jolt. Laurel winds their fingers together as they make their way towards the fitting rooms. It’s unlikely it’ll provide much comfort, but at least she feels like she’s _doing something_.

There are six black dresses for Laurel to try on waiting for her. They part ways and stand on separate sides of a too-large space filled with mirrors in between them.

If Laurel was a more poetic person, she might say it was some sort of representation for the distortion going on in Felicity’s head right now. But she’s not a poetic person.

Two of the six black dresses show much too much skin than Laurel is willing to show for a gala surrounding her _ex-boyfriend_. To be fair, she _had_ asked for dresses in the style of Black Canary, and the Black Canary _has_ been a bit more of a flirt than usual lately.

She likes the lace, though. She especially likes the dress with lace all along her collarbone and short sleeves, with everything else covered in a dark sort of elegance.

Dark sort of elegance, that definitely screams Black Canary.

“Do you have a favorite yet?” she calls over to Felicity, but gets a groan in response.

Clearly, the shopping is not helping Felicity clear her head, so Laurel doesn’t press or push like she normally would, she just announces that she’s coming out and would like Felicity’s approval on the dress she’s picked out.

Felicity emerges, slightly timid from behind the thick mahogany door in a blue dress that’s floor level with an outrageous slit up her leg that she is somehow making look classy. Felicity’s always had the talent for that. Right now, though, she just looks so small in it.

It’s obviously a dress she’s going to need to pair in heels, but she’s drowning in a dress the color of her eyes and it’s not because it’s too big for her because it’s not. Maybe she’s just drowning in general.

Laurel doesn’t know what to do.

So she compliments the dress. She’s still pretending like this is normal and everything is okay because maybe it’ll trick Felicity’s brain into thinking that everything’s okay even when everything is so obviously not okay.

“Please tell me you’re going with that one.”

“I don’t know,” Felicity sighs, running her hands over the shiny blue material, “I just don’t know if it looks appropriate enough for the girlfriend of _Mayoral Candidate Oliver Queen_.”

Suddenly, Laurel understands why it’s been so hard for Felicity to find a dress. Laurel’s _been_ here. In perhaps this exact same dressing room, trying to shop for who she should be rather than who she is.

Still, the fact that Felicity has resorted to not only her public persona, but her public persona that revolves around another person, it shows just how much she’s refusing to confront all of this. Laurel wouldn’t want to confront it either.

“Well,” she starts, attempting some sort of a comforting tone and putting her hands on Felicity’s bare shoulders from behind her, so her index fingers are just barely touching the turquoise crystals on the neckline, “what do you think _Mayoral Candidate Oliver Queen_ would think if he saw you in this dress?”

That gets a blush out of her, which Laurel supposes is probably a good thing (although she doesn’t want to think about the reasons behind said blush too much). At least it’s better than the default look of devastation she’s been wearing for days now.

“Well, first of all, he’d probably say something about how if this slit went any higher it’d probably reveal that hickey he left on my thigh last night.”

Laurel snorts at that, but lets it be, because if Felicity’s filter isn’t working, it probably means she’s somewhere back in a good place. Also, Laurel’s glad the mention of Oliver can still make Felicity smile. She hadn’t really had that luxury for a while when she’d been dating him.

Her voice is still cold and quiet and reserved, but at least she’s talking again, at least some remnants of who Felicity was before the reveal of her father still remain.

“Alright,” Laurel sighs, “but _besides that._ What would he tell you?”

Felicity manages a smile at that. “He’d tell me that I could wear pajamas and I’d still be the most stunning person in the room.” Laurel can tell she’s trying to look exasperated at her boyfriend’s obvious cheesiness, but even she’s getting a little fluttery at that.

Oliver’s so (she tries not to use the word _whipped_ ) in love with Felicity that sometimes watching them feels like someone is literally pouring sugar into her eyes. Laurel’s learned in the past year that sometimes life gets to a point where you literally cannot stomach that much sugar every day. Today, however, she’s willing to put up with it for the sake of Felicity’s well-being. She’d much rather hear her recite every cheesy terrible thing her boyfriend has told her then watch her break down at the proposal tape again.

“He really said that?”

Felicity looks down at her wrought hands with another flicker of a smile.

“And you’re still doubting he’s ready to propose to you?” Laurel asks.

Felicity takes a deep breath and looks at the reflection of the two of them, some of the most powerful women in Star City, and yet so much weaker than they appear. It’s obvious in her eyes that Felicity even still doesn’t wholeheartedly believe Laurel’s words

She may be a genius, but she’s an idiot if she doesn’t get this dress. Blue may be Felicity’s default campaign color, but this is just an entirely different dress altogether.

It makes her look like the CEO of Palmer Tech. The one who is getting pressed for an interview with Time Magazine, not the one who was kidnapped a week ago and who has a tendency to drop whatever she’s holding when people knock on her window in the middle of the night.

(That may not have been one of Laurel’s best ideas… to be fair, Oliver was gone and she was bleeding and she knew Felicity could stitch her up since the so-titled “Arrow Cave” had been destroyed by the police).

If Felicity’s going to hide herself in any public persona, it should be this one.

Because this is the one that is going to last far beyond Oliver’s mayoral campaign and any fallout from this proposal that got postponed. This will last if Oliver dies in action. This will last if everyone dies in action and Felicity is the only one left. This will last far beyond her lifetime, because Felicity worked her way to where she is.

Despite what the tabloids would like to think, it’s the truth. There’s a reason Felicity didn’t fumble when she was made the Vice President of Palmer Tech; she was somehow made to be a leader in technology, even more so than the Queen siblings, who were actually born and raised for the job. Laurel admires her for that.

They’ve both managed to rise far in professions dominated by men.

And now they’re both also friends, much to the horror of mass media, which keeps making the grown men of the city quake in their boots. Not to mention, Black Canary is running around the city beating guys up who’ve sexually assaulted the women they work with, and _someone_ ’s been draining their credit scores not far after, so honestly _when will they get a break?_

Even telling Felicity how she’d overheard Gary Kannely say something along those lines the other day when she was at the bank wasn’t enough to make her smirk.

But this, maybe helping Felicity choose the dress that will _definitely_ freak Gary Kannely out at Oliver’s gala because it honestly makes her look like hell in high heels, maybe that will be enough to keep Felicity from actually drowning.

And also maybe seeing his girlfriend in this dress will be enough of a smack to the head that Oliver will get his head out of his ass and propose to her already. If not, well, Laurel’s perfectly capable of smacking him in the head herself.

They buy the dresses.

They walk along the avenue, shopping bags in hand, for a while, and then stop for coffee at the Star City Jitters because Felicity says it’s been too long since she’s had caffeine in her body, although Laurel’s pretty sure she’s been inhaling those chocolate-covered coffee beans on her desk all day. Perhaps it’s the only thing that gets Felicity’s heart beating to a normal pace again.

Laurel sips her coffee when they stop at a bench, bags by their feet.

“What would you want in a wedding?” she asks.

She’s technically just testing the water, seeing if she can breach the subject without Felicity flinching. Her test pays off, since her eyes just sort of glaze over instead.

“I haven’t really thought about it…” Felicity says, “I guess I never thought marriage would even be an option for me after watching my parents’ fall apart.”

“And now?”

“Now… now I don’t know.”

“When I was your age, I wanted to get married at the Marigold Grand over on Fourth Street.”

Felicity swats at her arm a bit, but it doesn’t have as much intention as it might have. “You’re not _that much_ older than me.”

“Five years is a long time, Felicity. Lots of growth.”

“I’m guessing you don’t want to get married there anymore.”

Laurel pauses. “I don’t really think about it much anymore. Marriage is such an _Ollie_ -related thing that it just doesn’t really have the same ring to it anymore.”

They let that sit and watch a family cross the street. A brother and sister are dragging their parents along with all the wonder in the world in their eyes.

“Red dresses.”

“What?”

“The bridesmaids would have red dresses. That’s all I know.”

Laurel nudges her shoulder. “Oliver’s not the only totally sappy one in this relationship.”

“Shut up,” Felicity mumbles.

“Come on,” Laurel says, pushing her hands onto her knees with a sense of finality and standing up. “Let’s go get your boyfriend to propose to you.”


End file.
